Democracy without choice?

The words that are needed from political parties are words that assure voters of a level playing field for all parties

Apart from the traditional definition of democracy as a government of the people, by the people and for the people, one abiding dimension of democracy is that it is a system of government that is driven by choice on the part of the electorate, the traditional owners of any democratic nation-state’s sovereignty. Looking at Nigeria’s democracy two years before the 2015 election, it appears there are serious challenges to the choice aspect of democracy in the country.

What is on the electoral horizon barely two years before the 2015 election is a politics of fear or fear mongering. Before President Jonathan came to power in 2011 on his own steam as presidential candidate of the PDP, Nigeria’s political space was free and agog with political campaigns by several presidential candidates that got narrowed down to three candidates from three distinct parties: PDP, ACN, and CPC. However, there was no clear manifesto from the party that brought President Jonathan to power. The closest to a plan of action on his part was the promise of transformation. Transformation was a word that was attractive and even intoxicating to voters, who had lived for decades under various military and civilian rulers that did not bring noticeable progress to most citizens.

For anybody to promise transformation in a country with about 20,000 kilometres of tarred highways, with a railway without coaches; with houses and factories powered by generators; with an educational system on its knees; and with a security architecture unfit for a federation of nationalities; it was as good as promising a government of miracles. Millions of voters crossed party lines to vote for President Jonathan, the presidential candidate of the PDP. It will be uncharitable to say two years on the throne that the rest is history on politics or ethic of transformation.

Now five years away from the 2015 election, President Jonathan’s party men are effusive in the use of vocabularies that are reminiscent of President Obasanjo’s characterisation of the 2007 election as do-or-die. Vocabularies attributed to the President and leaders of his party smack of fear mongering. Instead of giving Nigerians any indication about what PDP is committed to do for Nigerians between now and 2015, PDP leaders are deliberately heating the polity with military diction: capturing 32 states; accepting the challenge of the 2015 election as war, etc. It is not democratic to give voters any reason to be afraid of elections.

Furthermore, at the national level, efforts by opposition parties to merge and give the electorate two major political parties to choose from in the next election are perceived to be frustrated by the ruling party, at whose door step opposition party leaders put the blame about the sudden emergence of political parties and organisations with the acronym APC. The effect of the perception that there are invisible government hands behind the birth of several organisations to snatch the acronym APC from the party to emerge from the merger of ACN, CPC, and ANPP is that there are politicians that are afraid of new parties that are big enough to give the ruling PDP stiff competition in 2015. If a new party with the right size and spread to challenge the ruling party is frustrated in any way, it is the voters that are disrespected. Democratic political competition for votes is generally one that is driven by ideas and performance of parties in competition for citizens’ votes. President Jonathan has promised many times that he wants to be remembered as one president that has encouraged free and fair election. Free and fair election is not just about what happens in polling booths or at vote counting stations; it is also about readiness of party leaders to present their ideas and records of performance to the electorate while leaving the voters to make their choice without intimidation, coercion, or cajolement of opposition parties.

The country needs to hear what each political party has to offer as vision, strategies and policies to achieve direly needed change. It will need a political party that is not afraid of coming to terms with Nigeria’s diversity, not a party that sees development and unity as synonyms. Voters need to hear from political parties that are willing and able to address the problem of infrastructure head-on, without having to blame power outage on too much or too little water in the dam or no natural gas to power the turbines, etc. Voters are waiting to hear from all parties that have plans and methods for addressing the problem of limited spaces for thousands of post-secondary students that desire to obtain tertiary training, instead of the millions of students that now roam the streets in search of visa to North America, Britain, Australia, South Africa, and even Ghana in search of university education. The Nigerian electorate will need to see from all parties willing to rule Nigeria in 2015 blueprints for reducing the number of able-bodied young men and women that roam in the millions the streets or offices of unemployment. Voters need to hear from all political parties what plans they have for preventing the death of 1,000 Nigerian children from malaria every day.

Millions of Nigerians who asked for political re-structuring of the federation are still craving to hear from political parties that want to work towards purposive unity among Nigerian nationalities through a programme of equal opportunity for all citizens and all cultures; of equity and justice in revenue allocation; fiscal federalism; sustainable appropriate security architecture for the country; infrastructure renewal that covers the whole country; free and compulsory education for the first twelve years of schooling in public schools; strategies for achieving nation-wide religious tolerance and harmony; unapologetic attitude towards any form of terrorism, etc.

These are some of the issues that voters are craving to hear political parties and their leaders address with honesty and sincerity, not bellicose words that evoke two years before 2015 the picture of war and blood. The words that are needed from political parties are words that assure voters of a level playing field for all parties, respect for the rights of all parties to contest for power; and respect for citizens’ right to choose the leaders they desire.